Hannah said the offensive tweet was taken down within an hour and the newspaper has "instituted new and tighter Twitter procedures" to ensure it will never happen again. Those responsible would be disciplined, he added.

"Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better. All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry," the message concluded.

A message sent to Quvenzhane's representative seeking comment wasn't immediately returned Monday. She was the youngest-ever actress nominee at the Academy Awards.

The Onion deleted the tweet about an hour after it was posted. Still, that was enough time to create a firestorm in the Twitterverse, with many saying the remark crossed a line.

Best Actress nominee Quvenzhane Wallis speaks to reporters on the red carpet as she arrives at the Oscars.

Many users managed to get screen shots of the offending message and shared their outrage.

''The Onion was tasteless for that tweet. It’s never okay to use that word towards anyone, especially someone's child,'' one user wrote.

''Calling a 9-year-old child a c-word in one of the biggest nights of her life was going too far even for the onion. Classless,'' another echoed.

''@TheOnion Unfollowing you. Your tweet about a 9-yr-old child was stunningly inappropriate. That's not satire or a joke. That's sick.''

Actor Wendell Pierce, who stars in Treme, described the tweet as an ''abhorrent verbal attack of a child''.

Blogger Elizabeth Hawskworth suggested there was a racist undertone, tweeting: ''Quvenzhané Wallis is a nine year old woman of colour. Let's let what @TheOnion did sink in and remember that Dakota Fanning never had this.''

Some people called for The Onion to apologise.

''An apology is due to Miss Wallis. Deleting the tweet does not make it go away. Would The Onion let this die if a celeb had said it?''

Quvenzhane Wallis grabs a snack as she stays up past her bedtime at the Oscars.

A spokeswoman for The Onion didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Not everyone thought the tweet went too far: It was retweeted more than 500 times and some 400 tagged it as favourite before being deleted.

The Onion website features satirical articles based on national and international news. Its Twitter account has more than 4.5 million followers.

Meanwhile Kelly Osbourne was slammed for failing to refer to the young actress by her real name.

The Beasts of the Southern Wild star hits the dance floor at the Governors Ball at Hollywood & Highland Centre after the ceremony.

One disgusted viewer posted: ''It is rude, unprofessional and borderline racist to not even try to pronounce her name properly.''

Another tweeted: ''Not learning her name is racist. Calling her Annie is racist. Saying she says her name the best is racist.''

The Onion's original tweet brought some calls for the fake news organization to publicly identify the writer of the tweet, vows to refuse to retweet its material, and requests from outraged consumers to email The Onion to complain.

Oscar host Seth MacFarlane also joked about the young star during the ceremony. Some found the quip offensive, albeit not to the degree of the outrage over The Onion's tweet. MacFarlane joked that "it'll be 16 years before she's too old for" George Clooney.

It wasn't the first time The Onion has gotten into hot water for trying to push its humour. Last year, the site attracted public ire for an image that showed an airliner about to crash into Chicago's Willis Tower. Despite an outcry, The Onion's marketing director refused to back down.

Last year, the joke site made international headlines when the online version of China's Communist Party newspaper hailed an Onion report naming North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as the "Sexiest Man Alive" - unaware it was satire.

In 2011, Washington Capitol Police released a statement refuting tweets and an article claiming members of Congress had taken a group of schoolchildren hostage. It included a doctored picture of Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner holding a gun to a child's head.

The Chicago-based publication was founded in 1988 by two students in Madison from the University of Wisconsin. Starting as a local college newspaper, it became a national comedy institution and went online in 1996, and has since developed a television news parody.

The publication is distributed weekly in cities, but it has also embraced Twitter and has an app for the iPad and other tablets. It says it averages 40 million page views and roughly 7.5 million unique visitors per month.

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